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Meanwhile; always keep an eye on the prize: a landslide against Trump and the GOP in 2020.

The real prize is seating a third SCOTUS appointee. Everything else is irrelevant.

It takes 51 votes in the Senate to expand the size of the Supreme Court or create new district and circuit-level judgeships. There’s already a compelling argument in favor of expanding the size of the federal judiciary given serious problems with case overload and delay of process.

Schumer and Pelosi types might balk at the idea of court packing, but after the Garland/Gorsuch/Kavanaugh debacle, the next generation of Dem legislative leaders probably won’t.

There was an interview with a border control guy who had just retired.

When asked what he thought they needed the most, he said "communication devices that reliably work in remote areas, and equipment to track people who cross the border, like drones with infrared cameras"

Contract stuff to Seraphina Amaranth.

"You give me the awful impression - I hate to have to say - of someone who hasn't read any of the arguments against your position. Ever."

Fortifications are mandatory if you want to slow down an enemy and get mad initiative bonus.
A horde of mexicans would pause for quite some time before a wall to scale or bypass it in other ways that would give you much more time to shoot them.

It is absurd that we are capable of witnessing a 40,000 year old system of gender oppression begin to dissolve before our eyes yet still see the abolition of a 200 year old economic system as an unrealistic utopia.

Fortifications are mandatory if you want to slow down an enemy and get mad initiative bonus.
A horde of mexicans would pause for quite some time before a wall to scale or bypass it in other ways that would give you much more time to shoot them.

This is why the walls that do exist at the boarder are at the towns. They actually make sense there to act as a short term blocker for a large number of people. The towns themselves provide cover for a mass of people to group up without warning.

Everywhere else, the walls are pointless. Small groups of people will slip over them undetected, while large groups would already be spotted long before they got to the border making the temporary delay of a wall pointless.

This is the crux of it; There are already walls on the border where it makes sense to have walls.

I just want to point out, from a historical point of view, that even in 1940, the Hitlerites punched through the Maginot line relatively easy in the second phase of their invasion of France.

Also, as for walls for keeping people out or in: the iron curtain wall, watchtowers, guns, mines and everything, was surprisingly permeable given the massive amount of money spend on building and maintaining it.

And that's the point: value for money. And a wall is simply very very bad value for money, given the actual situation on the southern border. Because if Trump would actually build a wall to keep the Mexicans out; 5.7B won't cut it. He'd need at least 20B for a simple, no frills, just a wall. Probably more like 50B for an iron curtain type wall. The upkeep would be gigantic as well (those watchtowers need to be manned), we're talking billions every year. So he'll basically be spending about $50000+ per immigrant stopped every year. Increasing as well, as the number of immigrants into the US from the southern border has been dropping since 2000. Not that it would stop the influx mind you, because, you guessed it, the immigrants would just go round it.

The whole 'wall' thing is just plain stupid. And it is only an issue because his handlers, when he just started running, needed something very very simple, otherwise he wouldn't remember it. So they hit upon a wall. A concept so basic, even Trump could understand.

Anyway, the wall is completely pointless, and I'm glad the Democrats are sticking to their guns, hopefully making it the political millstone around Trumps neck.

Giving billionaires a tax cut is bad value for money as well. I'm not sure why you think value for money is a metric conservatives bother with.

Originally Posted by Paul Mason

It is absurd that we are capable of witnessing a 40,000 year old system of gender oppression begin to dissolve before our eyes yet still see the abolition of a 200 year old economic system as an unrealistic utopia.